Viruses have been spreading for a long time from one host computer system to another by the various networks that connect them. With the increasing popularity of portable media systems, such as flash memory drives, viruses are now copying themselves into portable media systems and then again to other host computer systems when the portable media system(s) is/are connected to them. In this manner, viruses are able to spread between host computer systems even when no network is used.
A growing trend is to put anti-virus (AV) software on the host computer system and/or portable media systems and provide a means of scanning files before they are written to the portable media systems. It has been found that there are some problems using this approach
The AV software often requires a time-consuming installation procedure to be performed prior to activation on the portable media system.
Often AV software stored on the portable media system may conflict with AV software already on a host computer system and cause both to become inoperative.
As the memory capacity of the portable media system continues to increase, a complete scan of the portable media system by the AV software stored on the portable media system becomes impractical because of the time required.
AV software often comes equipped with features unrelated to scanning the portable media system, making it expensive and impractical for widespread distribution on portable media systems.
Solutions to these problems have been long sought but prior developments have not taught or suggested any solutions and, thus, solutions to these problems have long eluded those skilled in the art.